This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019-2021. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Date range: 2019-01-01 to 2021-12-31

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data notes: the state of the data received from the shelter.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs. RTH rates shown below are the number of strays with RTO outcome out of all strays.

When we go over this, let’s make sure we calculate the rate the same way you do, so we would want to make sure what we see makes sense. If these numbers are right, they are slightly lower than the HASS average, which are at about 30% RTH rate (for dogs), and show a small decline in 2021 compared to previous years.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 2620 45 1.7%
Cat 2020 2703 40 1.5%
Cat 2021 3121 47 1.5%
Dog 2019 3319 777 23.4%
Dog 2020 2800 604 21.6%
Dog 2021 2788 669 24%
Other 2019 91 24 26.4%
Other 2020 65 5 7.7%
Other 2021 109 3 2.8%

Field RTH Rate (dogs)

This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field, using the intake subtype ACO Pickup. Additionally, we also look at the return rate in the field vs that in the shelter, using the outcome subtype Returned in Field. Cats are excluded because there are very few of them.

The table shows that in 2019 there were 1992 strays coming in from the field, of which 102 were returned in the field (5.1%) and an additional 433 were returned from the shelter (21.7%), leading to a total of 26.8% return rate for field intakes. The percentages remain virtually the same in 2020 and 2021 as well. Since the overall RTH rates were around 21-24%, this suggests that field intakes have a slightly higher chance of being returned home compared to OTC intakes (next tab).

Year Strays RTH_Subtype RTH_Count RTH_Rate
2019 1992 Field RTH 102 5.1%
2019 1992 Shelter RTH 433 21.7%
2020 1586 Field RTH 81 5.1%
2020 1586 Shelter RTH 319 20.1%
2021 1464 Field RTH 90 6.1%
2021 1464 Shelter RTH 317 21.7%

Shelter RTH Rate

This shows the numbers only for strays that were public drop offs. Indeed, the rates are lower than field intakes for dogs across all years.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 2006 36 1.8%
Cat 2020 2304 32 1.4%
Cat 2021 2259 34 1.5%
Dog 2019 1327 242 18.2%
Dog 2020 1214 204 16.8%
Dog 2021 1324 262 19.8%
Other 2019 40 1 2.5%
Other 2020 42 1 2.4%

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

While the RTH rate (for dogs) is fairly stable over time, there are noticeable drop in summer months (prominently in 2019 and 2020). The patterns is fairly similar when looking at field / OTC intakes separately and thus not shown. The spike in December 2021 seems to be at least partly related to a lower intake volume that month (see intake volume figure in the next section).

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Cat intake is highly seasonal, dog intakes have gone down significantly when COVID hit and haven’t gone back to pre-pandemic numbers since. This is probably no big news, just helps to provide us with some context.

Stray Intake Subtypes

Likewise, this helps us understand how most stray animals arrive at the shelter (in your case, 57% come from public drop offs).

Length of Stay Differences - RTH v. Other Outcomes

The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays is shown in the table below – roughly 30 days for both dogs and cats.

That means that every successful RTH saves about 30 days of care on average at Lifeline - Dekalb, and field RTH would save an extra day or two on average for RTH from the shelter.

This could translate to pretty significant cost savings at scale – assuming a daily cost of care of $30 per animal, if 250 more dogs were returned home in 2021, it would have saved Lifeline - Dekalb about $225,000 in costs of care. This is a fairly simple calculation, but it gets at the magnitude of the potential benefits.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 6914 33.10
Cat RTO 132 3.46
Dog Other Outcomes 6835 33.44
Dog RTO 2050 3.36

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found Location - Dogs

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by Census tracts to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per census tract.

The data in this section includes stray animals for which found addresses were present. Out of all strays in the data (17616), about 500 had a found location of the shelter address, which is a reasonable percentage, but a further 1845 animals had unusable found locations for mapping – primarily street names with no number or intersection. These had to be removed, so the mapping below only shows those animals who did have workable data. ~150 animals were removed because they were found outside DeKalb County were also removed for simplicity of mapping. 230 animals that are not dogs or cats were not mapped due to their low numbers.

After this filtering, the data below (number of strays, rate of RTH, RTH gap) is shown for 7460 dogs of which 1761 were RTH.

The next section will show the same maps for 7023 stray cats.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

Note that the area with the highest stray intake also has among the lowest RTH rate (top right).

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists - it shows the number of strays NOT returned to home in each area. As the RTH rate is fairly low in the areas with the highest stray intakes, it looks like a more exaggerated version of the first map.

Top 10 Found Locations

Here’s a sneak peak into the top 10 found locations plotted above, to make sure they make sense to you.

Found.Location Count
5258 Winding Stream Ct GA 30088 18
4690 Darlene Way GA 30084 15
5947 Bobbin Ct GA 30058 13
774 Inland way NW GA 13
1312 Kittredge Ct NE GA 30329 12
2677 Beechwood Ave GA 30340 12
4437 Panola Rd Lithonia, 30038 GA 12
1149 Fleetwood Rd GA 30316 11
2960 Northeast Expressway GA 30341 11
3345 Georgian Woods Cir, Decatur, GA 30034 11

Stray Intake by Found Location - Cats

Cat Stray Intake Map

This is similar to the stray intake map above, but for 7023 stray cats. Since only 96 of those were RTH, there is no point in mapping those across town.

Top 10 Found Locations

Here’s a sneak peak into the top 10 found locations plotted above, to make sure they make sense to you.

Found.Location Count
5258 Winding Stream Ct GA 30088 18
5947 Bobbin Ct GA 30058 13
774 Inland way NW GA 13
1312 Kittredge Ct NE GA 30329 12
2677 Beechwood Ave GA 30340 12
4437 Panola Rd Lithonia, 30038 GA 12
1149 Fleetwood Rd GA 30316 11
2960 Northeast Expressway GA 30341 11
3345 Georgian Woods Cir, Decatur, GA 30034 11
966 Meadow Rock Drive Stone Mountian GA 30083 11

Census Data

Map

This map shows different demographic information for DeKalb County.

Strays x Med Household Income

One example of using both the census data and shelter data is below – there is a negative correlation between stray intakes and median household income (so poorer areas tend to have more intakes).

Distances Traveled by Lost Animals (NA)

We could add this upon getting an Intake with Results Extended report, which would have the outcome addresses for animals (all other personal information there can be filtered out by us or before sending).

Microchip Analysis

The following table breaks it down by species. Unfortunately, exam record was only able to be matched to 67% of intakes across the three years of data, so it is not entirely comprehensive (we had to assume Status Date was the same as the Intake Date, and matched using it plus the Animal ID). Yet, if we assume the success of matching exams to intake record is random (and not, say, more likely for animals with/out a microchip), this is a pretty large sample.

How many animals come in with a microchip?

There are more dogs and coming in microchipped (19.3%) than cats (5.7%). Breaking this down by year (2019, 2020, 2021) showed no significant change in this breakdown.

Species Microchip Count Percentage
Cat No 5975 91.9%
Cat Unknown 156 2.4%
Cat Yes 372 5.7%
Dog No 4076 79.7%
Dog Unknown 54 1.1%
Dog Yes 986 19.3%

RTH Rate with/out a microchip

This comparison is stronger after also making sure animals compared are similar on other characteristics, such as intake condition and age. But to get a first impression, for cats the RTH rate with chips is 15% compared to 1% without one, whereas for dogs, there is a 45% RTH rate for dogs with microchips vs 15% without chips.

The difference is obviously high, but it is worth also thinking about what might make the ‘yes’ category be at 45% as opposed to 100% (since there is presumably an owner), such as owners refusing, fees, wrong details on the chip, etc.

Species Microchip Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat No 5975 50 1%
Cat Yes 372 57 15%
Dog No 4076 626 15%
Dog Yes 986 447 45%

Data Notes

  1. Found location - as mentioned above, many animals had to be removed from mapping because of unusable found locations – primarily street names with no number or intersection. Using street name and number, a block number, or an intersection of two streets would improve mapping abilities.

  2. It is noteworthy that you track animals returned in field as you do – it would be interesting to talk through how that works for your field officers.

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Distance traveled by lost dogs – looking at RTH dogs that have both a found location and an outcome address and finding the distance between them to show how far from home dogs go when lost (usually, it tends to be not far).
  2. Microchip data - if you keep a record of which animals were chipped on intake, we can look at the prevalence of microchips in different parts of the shelter’s jurisdiction as well as the RTH rate for animals with/out a microchip.
  3. Reason for RTH failure when owner is found (if that is a common occurrence).
  4. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by the public (if you are using the lost and found report module in petpoint).

Thanks for reading through, and we’re looking forward to talking through it and thinking about more ways to make this data useful for you.